The body and its parts, both human and animal, are very important words in their own right. In addition to this, in many languages, body parts form the historical roots or present basis of important metaphorical idioms and function words.

Common is no exception in this regard - it uses many metaphors rooted in the body, both by design and by calque and coining, and the design of some of its function words were clearly intented to evoke bodily concepts.

This article will provide an overview sufficient to talk about the body and understand important idioms and derivations. However, it will not be exhaustive, particularly as concerns the internal organs. In particular, some body parts, especially those associated with sex, often have multiple slang terms associated with them, some of which change considerably from one state or even one city to the next. We will not attempt to be exhaustive about these in this article and stick more to the formal or widely-known terms.

Most terms for external body parts are rooted in Old Common and coined by Davidson, although some may have drifted in meaning over time. Some 'high profile' internal organs also have names going back to Old Common.

Other elements of anatomy have names rooted in the early modern period during the time that Common's technical vocabulary was deliberately expanded, mostly by borrowing and mostly from English, to make it suitable for highly technical endeavours.Many of these terms have remained mainly the realm of professionals, but some have made it into common parlanace as well, sometimes alongside native terms.

For English speakers, there will be few surprises here, except of course for the different sexual terms, which it is valuable to be aware of to be able to avoid unintentionally humorous, embarrassing or dangerous situations. Of note is the fact that there is a different word for mouth of an animal versus a human (similar to German) and you don't want to mix them up.

We are used to the idea of certain parts of the body, especially internal organs, being metaphorically associated with certain quality of character or emotion, Common uses such metaphors, going right back to Old Common, and does not seem to have innovated much from the languages Davidson spoke, especially English, possibly because it was important for viewers of the screenshow to identify with the metaphors expressed. Either way, there are few surprises here.

External Parts of Humans

The following terms pertain to the human body. They may also be applied to animals except where noted as human-only.

Animals (Short List)

The following is a short listing of some words pertaining to animals. Common did not start with many words for plants and animals, because it didn't come up a lot for the original screenshow, and the society that originally adopted Common was highly urban and technological and not as invested in plant and animal terms as a traditional society would be. Many of Common's animal words, except animals found in cities and category words, are borrowing from other languages, and this is one area where Common shows the most local variability. This area will be expanded into a larger topic later.

External Parts of Animals

The following terms may only be applied to animals. Applying them to humans is very rule and would typically only be done to be deliberately derogatory or insulting.

Internal Organs

The following is a non-exhaustive list of internal organs of humans and animals closely related enough to directly analogise.

Bodily Functions

The following basic bolidy functions and distress conditions are useful to know.